[PLUG] Network is unreachable

[Richard Steffens]

I have two machines sharing a keyboard, monitor, and mouse with a 
Linksys KVM switch. Last night, I was composing an e-mail on my Linux 
machine when the screen froze and there was no response to the keyboard 
or mouse. After a few minutes the monitor went into a weird cycle. It 
would go blank for a couple of seconds, blink once, and then return to 
normal for about 1 second. This cycle repeated, continuously.

Since hitting the scroll lock key twice is how the KVM switch knows when 
to switch, I was unable to get to this machine. And, since the keyboard 
is how I would initiate a controlled shutdown, I was left with the 
option of hitting the reset button on the box.

Reset had no effect. I even tried resetting this machine, too, but that 
didn't help. It occurred to me that the problem might be the KVM switch, 
and I thought about how to power cycle it, but since it draws power from 
one of the machines (I don't remember for sure through which cable) I 
couldn't see a way to shut it down without removing one of the cables 
that aren't supposed to be disconnected while powered (see recent 
discussion regarding PS2 mice and keyboards). So, I powered down the 
battery backup that feeds both machines.

Once power was restored, the machines came back up. But, the linux 
machine won't talk to the network. When I try to ping another machine in 
the house I get the message, "Network is unreachable".

When I run ifconfig, I only see information about lo; nothing about eth0.

When I run ifconfig eth0, I see its MAC address and a few lines of 
information. I assume that tells me that the ethernet card is present 
and will talk to the OS.

So, where do I go from here?

Thanks for any advice, and Merry Christmas to all.

-- 
Regards,

Dick Steffens
http://home.comcast.net/~rsteff/